The health benefits of exercise are well known and applicable to all ages of individuals, including cardiovascular improvement, muscle strengthening, stretching, increased blood circulation, better coordination, sharper motor abilities, flexible joint mobility, bone health, general overall wellness, and the like. One problem as an individual typically moves from being a child to being an adult, their physical activity levels decline just when maintaining good health is at its most important as an individual ages, typically their exercise levels decline that can work against maintaining good health, thus just when an individual should be exercising and being active, their exercise and activity levels tend to decrease.
Children are normally active in going places (i.e. walking or riding a bike), playing active games in their spare time, such as football, soccer, baseball, tag, hide and seek, and the like, plus being in school, children are also active in physical education classes and after school hours sports leagues. Thus as children we are normally plenty active and in the best of health due to our young age. However, as we become adults, societal norms tend to drive us into a much more sedentary lifestyle, for instance by having a car, we tend to walk very little, nor ride a bicycle much, and as an office worker we tend to sit at a desk for long periods of time, sit in meetings, sit on airplanes, and then go out for high fat and calorie content meals at restaurants, thus as a result most adults tend to gain weight by consuming more calories coupled with a lower activity lifestyle, just when our bodies should be in better shape to compensate for aging we typically get in worse shape.
Although the benefits of exercise especially for adults are acknowledged by most everyone for weight control, maintaining agility, preventing diabetes, preventing joint strain from excessive body weight, preventing higher various internal organ workloads (especially the heart) from excessive body weight, and so on, few adults are active enough to maintain even a recommended weight, typically being only about one-fourth of the adult population is not overweight, thus an overwhelming majority of adults are overweight. So the question to ask is, why don't the majority of adults exercise especially if the health benefits are widely known?
One probable answer is that available time and convenience are a problem for engaging in an exercise program, as most adults have a full time job, a family, and other interests that all together consume most of an adult's time, this is in addition to boredom and the constant obligation of regular exercise placed upon an individual's time. Wherein, even the adults who engage in exercise programs, especially after new years in January—typically lose interest in a short amount of time, wherein this “petering-out” of individual's exercise program is acerbated by the long term slow rate of actual physical shape (endurance, strength, and appearance) improvement. Thus, a potentially helpful solution is to minimize the time, boredom, and convenience obstacles to allow for an exercise program to be more possible for a working adult on a long term basis, wherein multiple exercises could be done at the same time allowing for more exercise to get done in less time, while at the same time this “multi-tasking” of exercises would help to improve agility, coordination, and control.
It is well recognized in the prior art the benefit of rhythmic and dynamic exercise for an individual especially if that exercise simultaneously exercises numerous muscles at once making the use if an individual's time more efficient and further enhancing the individual's coordination, agility, and speed. Relating in particular to boxing there are numerous devices currently in use for the exercising of boxers, these being a heavy punching bag, a speed bag, jump rope, medicine ball, various weight lifting, aerobics-calisthenics, and other individuals who would act as sparring opponents.
Focusing in particular on the “speed bag” being the shape of a pear (having a small end and opposing large end), typically made of leather and being suspended at the small end on a Gimbal type bearing (omni directional pivot) that is adjacent to a flat surface that the large end of the bag bounces or rebounds against. The boxer for training hits the speed bag with their hands in a rhythmic manner in typically a fast sequence that helps to enhance the boxer's hand speed, their hand-eye coordination, timing, shoulder endurance, and punch power. After a boxer's first hit there should be 3-5 rebounds off of the surface by the bag large end, wherein further skill advancing would go towards 3 bag/surface rebounds (from the boxer-away then toward, and then away again prior to re-punching), wherein at first training with a single hand and then advancing to using both hands and then finally alternating hands with each punch to the bag.
As even further advanced techniques the boxer can shift weight foot to foot while punching the bag, and even though the bag is typically positioned statically (i.e. the Gimbal bearing and surface are fixed in position), the boxer can also move about the bag in a circular manner while punching the bag or even alternatively riding a stationary bike while punching the bag. All of these more advanced techniques are to further enhance agility and coordination of the rhythmic bag punching with the hands while simultaneously using the legs for dodging movement and support. Note that the key to effective speed bag use is to punch the bag in a controlled manner that is more important than punching speed alone.
The speed bag can also be used to enhance punching accuracy via single punching and pining the bag, plus side punches, and elbow hits. Typically the speed bag has vertical height adjustment to accommodate different height boxers as it is desired to have the large end of the bag should about at eye level of the boxer, however, lateral or horizontal movement or adjustment of the speed bag at the Gimbal bearing attachment to the surface is not normally an option. Note that optimal speed bag performance would dictate proper inflation of the speed bag as it is inflated with a bladder similar to a foot ball, also that the Gimbal bearing moves in all directions freely, and the surface itself, in that the surface is of necessity a hard smooth surface, plus additionally the surface needs to be mounted (via a wall, ceiling, or other support structure) in a secure, rigid, and damped manner, as this is to ensure that the speed bag bounces or rebounds properly from the surface.
This requirement for the surface mounting especially for the damped requirement results in say for instance bags of sand being placed on top of the surface essentially making the surface have the damped rigidity of a cement wall resulting in the speed bag having an energetic rebound off of the surface, i.e. such that the kinetic energy of the speed bag movement has an almost perfect coefficient of restitution off of the surface, i.e. such that the surface absorbs almost no kinetic energy from the speed bag thus conserving the majority of the speed bag kinetic energy back into the bounce or rebound. Thus due to the requirements that the surface be very rigid, solid, and damped in its support structure mounting, dictates that the surface be mounted in a fixed manner close to typically a wall or ceiling of a building. The following is a sampling of the prior art in the speed bag/heavy punch bag arts and their associated support structures, note that for heavy punch bags there is no surface requirement as the heavy punch bag is merely flexibly suspended from an overhead structure not requiring a rigid, solid, or damped support structure.
Starting with U.S. Pat. No. 5,897,466 to Capach disclosed is a heavy bag and support mechanism for allowing a bag to move in a variety of ways after being struck by the boxer. The Capach device includes a support beam having an I-shaped cross-section and a swiveling rail support that is coupled to the support beam, wherein a rolling assembly is slidably coupled with the support beam. A height adjustment tube in Capach has a swiveling couple secured to the rolling assembly. Thus Capach provides a heavy bag with a wide upper portion and a narrow lower portion and an upper surface of the wide upper portion is swively coupled with a free end of the height adjustment tube. As Capach is a heavy punch bag there is no surface needed nor a rigid and damped support for the heavy punch bag that just has a movable and flexible overhead support.
Continuing in the prior art in U.S. Pat. No. 7,484,461 to Britcher disclosed is a trolley for transporting objects hanging from an I-beam normally securely grips or latches to the I-beam via a pair of brake pads that are urged upward against the bottom of the beam by a torsion spring. What distinguishes Britcher from Capach is that Britcher has a brake mechanism for limiting the heavy punch bag. The torsion spring in Britcher is released by pulling a lever downward and by applying lateral force to the trolley, preferably by applying the lateral force to the same lever, pulls the trolley along the I-beam as the wheels engaging the upper portion of the I-beam can rotate freely once the brake pads are released. Releasing the lever in Britcher after the trolley is pulled to the desired location causes the brakes to again firmly grip the I-beam. Again, as in Capach, with Britcher there is no surface needed nor a rigid and damped support for the heavy punch bag that just has a movable and flexible overhead support.
Further, in the prior art in U.S. Pat. No. 8,777,819 to Quintana disclosed is a simulated sparring partner apparatus and method for the training and exercising of a boxer, including a variable path and height track, wherein a target article such as a heavy punching bag or boxing speed bag is suspended from the track. Included in Quintana is one or more drives for moving the target article along the track, and a control apparatus for controlling the speed and direction of movement of the carriage along the track. The drive in Quintana may move the heavy punching bag at various speeds and in either direction, either on its own, or as a result of the boxer's actions, see FIG. 1. Also, the drive in Quintana may be programmable such that the carriage follows a predetermined path at predetermined speeds. Quintana is unique that although it is primary a heavy punch bag support (see FIG. 1) that only typically needs a flexible overhead support without a rebounding surface, FIG. 6A discloses a speed bag option that is suspended from the same track mechanism that the heavy punch bag uses at support bolt 420, see FIG. 5.
It is of note that none of the other cited references utilize the same support for a heavy punch bag and a speed bag, which would be for the reasons previously cited in that the heavy punch bag only needs a flexible overhead support and the speed bag has additional needs for a surface that is rigid and damped. Given the Quintana speed bag option in FIG. 6A with the attachment to support bolt 420 in FIG. 5, it is doubtful that Quintana would have a rigid and damped surface support for the speed bag which is known in the art to be desirable, in fact Quintana does not teach anything related to the unique mounting support requirements of the speed bag, as Quintana merely suggests attaching the speed bag to the heavy punch bag sliding rail support with nothing more.
Continuing in the prior art in U.S. Pat. No. 5,224,912 to Moody disclosed is a heavy punching bag support apparatus that comprises a mounting plate, a pivot shaft, an elongated rail rotatably attached to the pivot shaft, and a trolley frame slidably riding on and supported by the rail, thereby enabling a punching bag supported on the trolley frame to be moved rotationally about the central vertical axis of the support apparatus as well as able to be linearly moved through the central vertical axis of the support apparatus, see in particular FIGS. 1 and 3. Similar to Britcher, Moody has a braking means for the heavy punch bag support that has lateral movement along the track trolley and again, as in Capach and Britcher, with Moody there is no surface needed nor a rigid and damped support for the heavy punch bag that just has a movable and flexible overhead support.
Further, in the prior art in U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,822 to Murphy disclosed is a simulated sparring partner apparatus and method for the training and exercising of a boxer, including a track, a target article such as a heavy punching bag suspended from the track, a drive for moving the punching bag along the track, and control apparatus for controlling the speed and direction of movement of the carriage along the track. The drive in Murphy may move the punching bag at various speeds and in either direction, in addition the drive may be programmable such that the heavy punching bag follows a predetermined path at predetermined speeds. Alternatively, in Murphy. motion of the heavy punching bag may be manual so as to allow a coach or trainer to control the motion of the bag. Murphy, being similar to Quintana in having a power drive trolley track for moving the heavy punching bag, plus again, as in Capach, Moody, and Britcher, with Murphy there is no surface needed nor a rigid and damped support for the heavy punch bag that just has a movable and flexible overhead support.
What is needed is a selectable speed bag support apparatus, that allows a lateral movement of the speed bag at the Gimbal bearing attachment to the surface while maintaining the previously mentioned attributes of a speed bag surface such as rigidity and dampening, further the lateral movement of the speed bag adjacent to the surface would be controllably random, with the functional goal of challenging the boxer to enhance their simultaneous coordination of their hands and feet while working the speed bag while the speed bag is arbitrarily moving laterally while remaining adjacent to the surface that is rigidly mounted and damped to a wall or ceiling. Further, the means by which the speed bag Gimbal bearing would be moving laterally adjacent to the surface would not affect the surface performance ability in rebounding the speed bag.